Card, mobile credential, payment and security
Off-campus programs inhabit an odd place for colleges and universities. Institutions can sometimes build a modest revenue stream from these programs and students seem to enjoy using their student ID card at places beyond the campus.
But on-campus food service and retail locations have not always been thrilled, arguing that off-campus options can siphon money away from them. This concern has waned in recent years, however, as evidence emerged supporting the notion that with more choice comes more spend across the range of acceptance points.
Some campuses run these programs internally – identifying the merchants, deploying terminals and cutting checks or electronically settling. Others outsource the service to a campus-card provider or other third-party servicer.
Both options are viable, but come with their own considerations. With the outsourced model, for instance, campuses might see a smaller share of the fees paid by participating merchants, while universities that run their systems in house could have to hire additional staff to run the program. Marketing; staffing; terminal deployment and maintenance; customer support; settling, reporting and reconciliation are all areas that should be considered when evaluating which way to head.
The Catcard services office at the University of Vermont is a busy place, serving 12,000 students and 2,500 faculty and staff at its Burlington, Vt. campus. The off-campus program started in 1999 with a takeout restaurant, pizza parlor and juice bar, says Amy Suprenant, business manager for the Catcard Service Center.
The university now has 107 merchants on board and runs off-campus programs for four other neighboring colleges. “We have everything from taxis, retail stores and a dentist,” Suprenant says. “We didn’t just want food options.”
The program includes three large supermarkets in the area, the last of which came on board this year. Fast food, convenience stores and groceries are the top three merchant categories, Suprenant says.
Leading up to the original launch there were some concerns about students using their campus ID and declining balance account to buy alcohol or tobacco products. To at least ease this concern, restaurants and merchants with more than 51% of sales from alcohol are not eligible to participate in the program.
Even with the popularity of the off-campus options, on-campus sales have not suffered. Suprenant says 55% of purchases are still being made on campus, on-campus dining levels continue to grow and they haven’t seen a drop off.
The university’s CatScratch program is used for off-campus purchases, for vending and to make other purchases on campus, Suprenant says. Students can deposit funds on the card at the card office, at one of the many kiosks around campus or online. Students are charged a $3 convenience fee if they add funds online.
At its peak in 2008 the university saw deposits of $1.8 million into the accounts but that has dropped to average around $1.2 million in recent years. “We attribute the drop off to the bad economy and the campus’s decision to start accepting credit and debit cards,” she explains.
Merchants that want to participate in the program must fill out an application. If accepted, the merchant pays a $250 setup fee, and is charged 6% for every purchase Suprenant says. Merchants get monthly statements and all accounts are reconciled on the 15th of every month.
The success of the university’s program sparked nearby colleges to come calling to see if they could get on board. Vermont hosts the same off-campus programs for nearby Saint Michael’s, Champlain and Norwich colleges – another 6,700 students in total.
The university does its best to educate incoming students about the program during orientation as well as promote the program throughout the academic year. The card office has weekly “Friday freebies” for anyone who likes the program’s Facebook page. They are also exploring the idea of coupon books and a loyalty or rewards program for students.
While running its own off-campus program might see daunting, the university has only good things to say about the experience. “There’s really no downside, it’s nothing but pros,” Suprenant says.
Located in central Michigan, Albion College decided to contract with CardSmith for an off-campus program, says Jordan Rich, director of information and user services at the college. Albion was already deploying a CardSmith campus card program, including door access and on-campus dining, and decided that the addition of an off-campus program just made sense.
The 1,400-student college has 15 merchants signed up, Rich says. The school identified specific merchants it wanted to include, and CardSmith pursued others. “We disapproved a couple local merchants who tried to join because they were liquor stores,” he adds.
Merchants are charged between 3% and 5% of each purchase, Rich says. They also have to purchase a separate point-of-sale terminal that only accepts the Albion ID. Albion students making purchases at the store have to go to that specific line to make their purchases.
Dining plans are separate from Albion’s Briton Bucks declining balance accounts, Rich explains. This eased concerns that the college’s on-campus food services had about losing money to the new off-campus program. Briton Bucks are also used for laundry, vending and other on campus purposes.
The program is popular on campus, with 70% of students funding the Briton Bucks account, Rich says. There is typically around $300,000 in accounts at any one time during the school year.
Albion rolled out the programs to improve the student experience, Rich says. “We also wanted to integrate the community more into campus,” he adds.
It’s been nine-years since William Paterson University of New Jersey rolled out its off-campus program with CBORD, says Tino Rexach, IT and Enterprise Network Services at the university. Today, there are 21 merchants participating in the program, Rexach says.
As with Albion, community outreach seems to be a priority for Paterson, as outside of a McDonald’s, 7-11 and CVS, all other off-campus participants are local merchants.
The initial reasoning for an off-campus program at William Paterson was born out of necessity. The student union was going to be closed for six to 12 months for reconstruction and school officials wanted to offer options for student dining. Looking off campus to help feed them seemed the best option.
The university now offers students a few options for dining, Rexach explains. They have dining halls with all-you-can-eat options and a food court. The university offers both meal plans that enable a student to get a certain number of meals each day in the dining halls, as well as a declining balance account that can be used at the food court or in the off-campus program.
The university is using CBORD’s GET Funds and GET Food, online and mobile software applications. Following the successful pilot, online and mobile food ordering service will roll out to all students in the fall, Rexach says.
The service is basically a GrubHub type service, tailored specifically for William Paterson, and offering both on- and off-campus food options. The students will be able to open an app on their mobile or go to a web site, see the dining options and menus, place an order and pay with their campus card.
William Paterson helped beta test some of the early versions with CBORD and saw success with the pilot, Rexach says. “Within three months, three of the merchants were seeing more traffic with GET Food than with GrubHub,” he explains.
The university will be promoting the new features during orientation for incoming students and heavily this fall when students return to campus. The institution already offers a mobile app for students to use, and the online food ordering system will be added to increase the app’s functionality.
Whether a university decides to run its own program or outsource to a campus card provider or other servicer, off-campus programs seem to be something the student expects rather than an added bonus. Moreover, the advent of mobile and online ordering seems likely to expand these programs to new heights in both convenience and usage as students gain the ability to use their campus ID in new ways and at more locations.
Beloit College has once again compiled a list of items that best encapsulates the incoming freshmen class of 2018.
The list is entertaining, puzzling and at time, downright frightening. Nonetheless, it provides some insight into the abyss that is the mind of a college freshman.
For starters, the class of 2018 is comprised of students who were generally born in 1996. That being said, Tupac Shakur, Jon Benet Ramsey and Carl Sagan are just a few notable individuals who have never been alive during the incoming class’ lifetime.
To further date this incoming class of students, Madonna has a daughter, Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon, who will be enrolling this year, so too will Sophia Stallone, daughter of Sylvester.
Continuing with the theme of important and famous people, the class of 2018 has seen dozens of actors portray Nelson Mandela, and during their lifetime, Bill gates has always been the richest man in the U.S., the Unabomber has always been behind bars and everybody has always loved Raymond.
The list is understandably packed with similarly mind-boggling stats. For instance, the class of 2018 had just started kindergarten when the 9/11 attacks occurred. Moreover, the incoming class has never known a world without both MSNBC, which made its debut in July of 1996, and FOX News that launched in October of that same year.
It’s media of a social variety that has come to define this generation of college students, despite the fact that the class of 2018 will have never used Netscape. Pressing “pound” on a phone now denotes a hashtag, while the resulting Tweet is likely to include a selfie. Positive feedback, meanwhile, has been awarded in the form of “likes.”
While Beloit College’s list for the class of 2018 offers a light and entertaining glimpse into the mind of this year’s incoming freshmen, there are some lessons to be learned as well. Campus administrators across the country are tasked with keeping up with the students that they serve, and really, what better way is there than to meet them at their level?
See Beloit’s full list here.
Bitcoin ATMs could be installed at Canada’s Simon Fraser University as early as this fall, provided university officials approve a pilot project that is under consideration.
Under the proposed initiative, students would be able to use the digital currency to pay for food and other purchases on the university’s Burnaby Mountain campus. It would mark the first implementation of its kind on a college campus.
According to News 1130, Simon Fraser has its own student-run Bitcoin club, and according to club president Michael Yeung, the campus wide initiative intends to integrate with university bookstores. By Yeung’s estimation, all three of the university’s bookstore could be ready to accept Bitcoin payments as soon as early October.
Yeung has been working on the campus-wide plans at Simon Fraser for over half a year. He believes that Bitcoin has the potential to impact world finance and global commerce the same way the Internet has done in the last 20 years.
Though Simon Fraser University has no plans to accept Bitcoin for tuition payments, Yeung remains hopeful that this too will change if the electronic currency goes mainstream.
The university is also considering hosting a three-day international Bitcoin expo on its Vancouver campus later this fall.
Per the club’s website, the Simon Fraser Bitcoin Club was officially recognized by the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) on June 24th, 2013. The Club focuses its efforts on the educating and engaging Canadians on the emerging world of decentralized virtual currencies and the future of money and partakes in the following activities:
Beginning with the upcoming 2014-15 school year, New Caney Independent School District will be implementing a new electronic tracking system that monitor students’ attendance on buses, ensuring that they ride the correct bus and exit at the right stops.
The district is rolling out Secured Mobility’s SMART Tag, an electronic system that uses tablet computers – complete with RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Device) reader, mobile connectivity and GPS – on each bus. SMART Tag uses off-the-shelf Android tablets on each school bus with GPS and NFC-reading capability, providing a cost-effective solution.
According to the East Montgomery County Observer, students will place their SMART ID cards on the tablet’s sensor as they board and depart their bus. Logging attendance in this way ensures that all students are accounted before and after their bus routes have been completed.
All students will receive a plastic SMART ID that resembles the ID card currently used by high school and middle school student in the district. The SMART tags will be issued at elementary schools during parent-teacher events.
No information is stored on the Student ID tag. According to Secured Mobility, the tags are manufactured with a 14-digit code that, when presented to the tablet RFID reader, pulls up the student information associated with that code.
Those within the New Caney Independent School District feel that new system has the potential to greatly increase student accountability, safety and security when riding buses. SMART IDs will be required each time children board and depart a bus.
The SMART Tag system also features a Parent Portal. Parents can sign up for “SMART Alert” to receive a text message or email at the end of the school day, providing a 10-15 minute notice telling them that their child is on the bus and nearing their bus stop.
Parents can access the portal from any device that has a Web browser. They can also add or remove authorized guardians to the system as well as keep an up-to-date list of persons who are authorized to pick up their child.
The system costs roughly $500 per bus, with an additional $1 per day per bus charge for Internet connection and $1 per SMART Tag student ID. Mounting the hardware adds an additional $60-$90 per bus depending on type of hardware chosen.
With a vast majority of messages being sent electronically, the brick and mortar mailrooms on college campuses have seen a drop in paper letters. Still, care packages from home stuffed with cookies, socks and the like, continue to flood university mailrooms.
This is the case at Loyola University Maryland, where mailroom staff have decided to rethink the process of package pick up, using the student ID to streamline the process. U.S. Mail volume is down substantially at Loyola, yet package volume has risen 30% over the same time period – driven largely by online shopping and textbook rentals.
This spike in package delivery has led to underused mailboxes, insufficient package space, security issues and unacceptable wait times for customers. To address the issue, Loyola selected the Ricoh Campus Mail Solution – a combination of Ricoh University Kiosks, self-service stations, and a High Density Mail System that enables the use of barcoded mail slots.
The new system eliminated the numerous stacks of traditional mailboxes used by Loyola’s 4,000 undergraduate students. Moreover, the system has created proper storage for packages and has freed 10,000 square feet of valuable space that can now be reallocated as the university sees fit.
When a package or piece of mail arrives at the mail center, students first receive a notification email. Then, the student visits the mail center at their convenience and swipes their student ID card at a self-service kiosk located near the mail center window.
After swiping their student ID, an electronic alert is sent to mail center employees along with the location and physical characteristics of the student’s package and mail. A worker then retrieves the items with just enough time to hand it to the student as they reach the front desk.
With the new system, Loyola expects wait times to fall from as much as 30 minutes to just one minute or less, an estimate that is based on Ricoh’s experience at other university mail centers. Mail center supervisors can also electronically track customer waits in real-time.
As for storage, student mail is no longer stored in traditional mailboxes. Instead, packages will be sorted into a high-density rolling racking system. Mail workers use small scanners, worn on their fingers, to scan barcodes on each slot as they deposit a mail piece. This barcode is what triggers an email alert to the student.
As an added utility at Loyola, Ricoh is also installing a photo printing kiosk and a shredding kiosk to help protect student’s personal information.
Nigeria’s Osun State Government has launched smart identity card for all public school students within the province. The initiative began with the Salvation Army School, and stresses a commitment on the part of the government to use technology to improve planning, resource allocation and service delivery in the education sector.
The smart card program is backed by leading Nigerian smart card provider, Chams Plc. According to Nigerian news outlet, This Day Live, the smart ID cards will be linked back to a central database that will provide the government with accurate and reliable data on both the identity and number students attending public schools in the state of Osun.
Chams and First Bank of Nigeria partnered with the state government this past April to provide civil servants with smart identity cards embedded with MasterCard prepaid capabilities. This partnership produced the first credential of its kind by any state government in Nigeria.
Now, the Nigerian government intends to implement a similar offering for the nation’s school children. Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola explained that with the new smart cards, each student would remain a unique and identifiable individual that cannot be mistaken for another person.
The new cards will also bolster Osun student life programs including O’Meals, O’Schools and Opon Imo – a program that provides student with e-learning tablets – along with other student welfare programs. As Aregbesola explains, the new smart cards will introduce an added level of accountability, providing more accurate data as to the exact number of eligible beneficiaries – a utility that the governor believes will eliminate fraud and accounting errors.
According to Chams’ managing director, Demola Aladekomo, the Osun Smart ID card will also provide biographical and biometric identification of public school students across Osun’s elementary, middle and high schools.
A recent US Senate Banking Committee hearing addressed issues that could determine the future of campus card bank partnerships. Though many expected ID cards and aid delivery to be a minor topic in comparison to other Title IV financial aid related issues, it dominated much of the discussion during the hearing titled “Financial Products for Students: Issues and Challenges.”
The following article highlights key testimony, including an opposition letter from the seven Kansas state system institutions, a US PIRG representative outlining the consumer advocate position against these accounts, and finally a banking association president’s case for the positives provided by bank and campus partnerships.
A video of the hearing and testimony is available at the following link. Jump 17:00 minutes into the video coverage to listen in on card-related issues. (http://www.banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.LiveStream&Hearing_id=8058e98c-2c38-4e5c-999a-fdae0e929bc4)
At the start of the hearing, US Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., read a letter submitted by the presidents of seven institutions in the Kansas state system. It stated their concern with language that regulates any arrangement in which a student opens an account into which the Title IV funds are to be placed.
Senator Moran read from the letter for the Kansas Universities:
“(This regulation) could have a chilling and in some cases terminal effect on good business partnerships that currently benefit students and universities alike.
Students often far from home need access to safe and secure financial services. Financial experience is a necessary part of student life and is essential training in long-term financial health.
Knowing this many schools have signed agreements with banks to provide on-campus financial institutions at low or no cost students. Such services include secure on-campus branches, ATMs, debit cards and financial education programs.
Any regulatory action that could potentially take away students safe convenient and free access to one group of essential services while it simultaneously drives up the cost of education for that same group of students deserves to be studied with extraordinary care.”
Christina Lindstrom, US PIRG spokesperson, highlighted what the consumer group sees as unfair and onerous for students:
“Right now students are being hit with high fees that are hard to avoid as they try to access their federal financial aid refunds through campus sponsored bank accounts and prepaid debit cards. We found in our 2012 report, “The Campus Debit Card Trap,” that two in five college students in the country are exposed to debit cards on campus that may drive up their costs.
Students at some campuses are charged steep and unusual fees to get to their federal financial aid including PIN transaction fees at the point-of-sale, overdraft fees of $37 or more. On the whole these accounts are not necessarily a better deal for students than what they might find through a bank not affiliated with the campus.
Still industry-leading banks and financial firms can see 40-75% of students on a campus using the campus-based product a few years of marketing. How do they do it?
First, banks and financial firms behind these products often rely on multi-million dollar revenue-sharing agreements with campus administrations. The contracts include receiving direct payment to use the school’s logo, providing bonuses for recruiting students and discounted pricing in exchange for marketing access.
In addition they used push marketing and other strategies to steer students into opening up these new accounts over using their existing bank accounts.
Higher One, a prominent financial firm in this market, pre-mails the cards to every student on campus, before they’ve opted in or out. The cards are co-branded with the college logo giving impression that the student must open the account.
At another college, bank representative actually set up tables right outside the student ID office, essentially … aggressively promoting their accounts that students can link to their id cards. Students can get freebies like bags and T-shirts for signing up.
Finally the fees can be high as I mentioned and unusual. Fees on university-sponsored cards include a variety of PIN swipe fees, inactivity fees, overdraft fees, ATM surcharges, fees to reload prepaid cards, fees to check your account balance … I could go on. The fees can be hard to avoid, for example, if a merchant only accepts PIN debit or there’s no fee-free ATM available.
All campus bank accounts and prepaid card services can charge overdrafts. Overdraft coverage is a form of credit since the financial institution covers the consumer shortfall and subsequently repaid the amount extended plus a fee. Some banks engage in the abusive practice of purposefully reordering transactions to maximize overdraft fees. Many banks and financial firms that are playing on campus right now have been held accountable for their abusive practices in this arena.
Overdraft fees are inconsistent with the Department of Education’s existing rules on school-sponsored accounts. Department of Education rules also require that students be provided convenient fee-free ATM access. In practice access can be limited.
One argument that’s being made in defense of these campus banking products is that too many low income students are not able to acquire a bank account other than on campus – these are the unbanked students. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found less than one-half a percent of college students in America are legitimately unable to secure a bank account, so new student who comes on the campus without a bank account – she doesn’t have one because she chose not to have one or she hasn’t gotten one yet.
Students do not need campus-sponsored bank accounts.
So I urge you to consider legislation that bans revenue-sharing agreements between colleges and banks or financial firms crafted specifically to offer bank accounts and related banking products to students on campus. The conflict of interest inherent in these accounts is problematic for the student consumer and it needs to be addressed.”
Richard Hunt, President and CEO, Consumer Bankers Association articulates the case for continuation of these relationships and accounts:
Some Consumer Bankers Association members have entered into agreements with institutions of higher education to provide useful services, such as campus ID cards that can be linked, at the option of students, to a standard deposit account. These financial institutions also provide important services, such as on campus financial literacy programs and assistance with financial aid systems to colleges and universities.
According to a GAO report, “Most of the college card fees we reviewed generally were not higher, or in some cases were lower, than those associated with a selection of basic or student checking accounts at national banks. In particular, college card accounts generally did not have monthly maintenance fees, while the basic checking accounts we reviewed typically did.”
Recently, the DOE entered into a negotiated rulemaking with a variety of stakeholders, including students, school representatives, banks, credit unions, consumer groups, and others, on the topic of “cash management,” which includes the disbursement of student aid refunds, federal aid in excess of what is needed to pay school charges. Despite significant progress among non-federal negotiators and the offering of good-faith proposals by the bank and credit union negotiators, consensus proved elusive. This leaves the Department unbound by any agreements worked out during the negotiations, and free to write whatever changes to the regulations it wishes to propose.
CBA shares the DOE’s goal of promoting students’ understanding and management of financial products while ensuring they have meaningful choices. However, we have serious concerns about and objections to the expansiveness of the draft regulation related to disbursement of federal student aid credit balances, particularly with regard to non-disbursement accounts (i.e. accounts opened outside of the Title IV credit balance disbursement process), as well as sponsored disbursement accounts. Similar apprehensions relating to the scope of the DOE’s rulemaking have been expressed by members of both parties and houses of Congress.
With regards to non-disbursement accounts, though the language in the draft regulation presented by the DOE during the negotiated rulemaking is not clear, it would certainly classify as “sponsored accounts” any traditional bank deposit account linked to a “campus card,” such as a college identification card, even though the depository institution offering the account does not facilitate the delivery of federal student aid credit balances for the school – which is the true subject of the rulemaking. In addition, the draft regulation could cover any deposit account that could receive federal student aid credit balance disbursements held by a financial institution that happens to have other types of arrangements with colleges or universities (“educational institutions”). As sponsored accounts, these accounts would be subject to various requirements and significant restrictions under the proposed regulation, impacting relationships that have nothing whatsoever to do with the disbursement of federal student aid credit balances.
While the DOE has authority to write rules concerning Title IV financial aid disbursement and the methods under which disbursements are made, the proposed rule would go beyond that scope and regulate the availability and terms of deposit accounts, including debit cards and prepaid cards, available to students from depository institutions – separate and apart from the financial aid disbursement process. We can identify no authority for DOE’s overreach to regulate deposit accounts that have, at best, only a tangential relationship with those accounts.
Moreover, and more importantly, this broad scope would have a chilling effect on the offering of accounts designed for students and would deprive students of choice and access to valuable, low-cost, and convenient access to bank services, accounts that can be especially useful to those students who arrive on campus without a bank account. For these reasons, we have urged the DOE to reconsider its draft regulation so it does not cover these traditional bank products and services to the extent they are offered outside of disbursement services (i.e., to the extent the deposit account opening process is not integrated within the federal student aid credit balance disbursement process).
In addition to our concerns regarding non-Title IV disbursement accounts and services, we are concerned the proposed regulation will effectively eliminate federal student aid credit balance disbursement accounts — that is, accounts specifically designed to disburse federal student aid credit balances—to the detriment of students and educational institutions.
Federal student aid is disbursed directly to colleges and universities, which use the funds to satisfy a student’s tuition expenses and then disburse the remaining funds to the student to be available for other appropriately related purposes. The DOE has issued a series of student aid credit balance disbursement regulations, which have increased the operational complexity of disbursing these funds to students. Financial service providers have partnered with educational institutions to help these educational institutions satisfy the DOE disbursement requirements. These arrangements enable colleges and universities to reduce the costs of disbursing federal student aid credit balances by utilizing direct deposit, rather than mailing paper checks, thereby decreasing costs for students and schools and provides to students, safe, quick, and convenient access to funds. In some of these arrangements, financial institutions may offer students a deposit account within the credit balance disbursement process itself or, when instructed by the educational institutions, provide them with a prepaid card to access federal student aid credit balances, particularly where a student does not have a pre-existing account to accept a direct deposit of funds. Most importantly, these products and services are always offered as options and are never a requirement. As evidenced by the chart below, institutions of higher education offer students a variety of options for receiving excess student aid funds. Paper checks along with ETFs to a bank account of the student’s choosing are the most prevalent methods for disbursing these funds.
For those students who do not have, or cannot easily access, an existing bank account, a letter from the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) notes, “campus banking relationships can streamline the process of establishing a new account or a pre-paid card option provides an alternative to a check.”
The draft regulation presented by the DOE during the aforementioned negotiated rulemaking would effectively deprive students and educational institutions of these services by compelling financial institutions currently providing such “sponsored accounts” – including those in no way opened in connection with the credit balance refund process – to stop providing them to tens of thousands of students on multiple campuses. Draft regulation would restrict nearly all income sources associated with the maintenance and use of these products. With limited or no means to support the cost of providing the services, providers may have no choice but to exit the business and close existing accounts.
The result would be thousands of students losing a convenient, safe, and quick option to access their federal student aid credit balances, and the convenience of a single card that – at the election of the student – can combine financial and school functionality. Payments to students via checks would be more prevalent, especially for those without bank accounts, delaying the students’ access to the funds and potentially causing them to incur off-campus check cashing fees. In addition, it is worth noting the CFPB found that requiring disbursement through electronic fund transfer can reduce fraud and costs.
CBA is hopeful all involved in this process come to understand how banking relationships on campus provide students access to a range of financial products and options to meet their needs. It is especially important that the function of providing general financial services is not adversely affected by concerns over the separate issue of making federal aid funds available to students who wish to have funds deposited directly into a bank account, instead of being given cash or a check.”
By John Trader, Director of Communications, M2SYS Technology
One of the biggest recurring issues that the biometrics industry faces is that the technology is often misunderstood, in turn perpetuating resistance to its use and creating assumptions based on a general lack of knowledge.
Partially the fault of the industry itself for not being thorough enough on educating consumers about the differences in biometric modalities, there is no better evidence of the continued confusion around the technology than the idea that iris and retina biometrics are one in the same. Let me take a moment to explain the distinct differences between these two, unique forms of biometric identification.
In biometrics, iris and retinal scanning are known as “ocular-based” identification technologies, meaning they rely on unique physiological characteristics of the eye to identify an individual. Even though they both share part of the eye for identification purposes, these biometric modalities are quite different in how they work.
The human retina is a thin tissue composed of neural cells located in the posterior portion of the eye. Because of the complex structure of the capillaries that supply the retina with blood, each person’s retina is unique. The network of blood vessels in the retina is so complex that even identical twins do not share a pattern. Although retinal patterns may be altered in cases of diabetes, glaucoma or retinal degenerative disorders, the retina typically remains unchanged from birth until death.
A biometric identifier known as a retinal scan is used to map the unique patterns of a person’s retina. The blood vessels within the retina absorb light more readily than the surrounding tissue and are easily identified with appropriate lighting.
A retinal scan is performed by casting an unperceived beam of low-energy infrared light into a person’s eye as they look through the scanner’s eyepiece. This beam of light traces a standardized path on the retina. As retinal blood vessels are more absorbent of this light than the rest of the eye, the amount of reflection varies during the scan. The resulting pattern of variations is converted to computer code and stored in a database.
The iris is a thin, circular structure in the eye that is responsible for controlling the diameter and size of the pupil and thus the amount of light reaching the retina. Iris recognition is an automated method of biometric identification that uses mathematical pattern recognition techniques on video images of the irises of an individual’s eyes. These subsequent random patterns are unique and can be seen from some distance.
Unlike retinal scanning, iris recognition uses camera technology with subtle infrared illumination to acquire images of the intricate structures of the iris. Digital templates encoded from these patterns by mathematical and statistical algorithms enable positive identification of an individual. Databases of enrolled templates are searched by matching engines at speeds measured in millions of templates per second and with infinitesimally small false match rates.
Hundreds of millions of people around the world have been enrolled in iris recognition systems for convenience and security purposes from passport-free automated border crossings to national ID functions. A key advantage of iris recognition, besides its speed of matching and its extreme resistance to false matches, is the stability of the iris as an internal, protected, yet externally visible organ of the eye.
While both iris and retina scanning are ocular-based biometric technologies, there are distinct differences that clearly separate the two modalities. Iris Recognition uses a camera, similar to any digital camera, to capture an image of the Iris. The Iris is the colored ring around the pupil of the eye and is the only internal organ visible from outside the body. This allows for a non-intrusive method of capturing an image since you can simply take a picture of the iris from some distance.
Retinal scanning, on the other hand, requires a very close encounter with a scanning device that sends a beam of light deep inside the eye to capture an image of the retina. Since the retina is located at the back of the eye, retinal scanning is not widely accepted due to the intrusive process required to capture an image.
Similarities:
Differences:
Blackboard acquired rival campus card vendor and cloud-system provider, CardSmith. The acquisition broadens Blackboard’s system deployment capabilities adding an established software-as-a-service option to its traditional on-premise offering.
In its ten-year existence, CardSmith built a multi-tenant cloud technology alternative to hosted card systems, enabling both universities and K-12 environments to deliver student ID solutions without the need to host software or physical servers on campus. As a result of the acquisition, Blackboard can now deliver both cloud and locally hosted solutions.
The acquisition potentially opens the door for Blackboard to pursue a wider range of institutions as well as other closed campus environments like schools, corporate campuses, residential and retirement communities. Smaller entities that traditionally have been unable to afford or maintain hosted solutions may now be within the company’s sweet spot.
“Combining with the campus card industry’s only proven and comprehensive cloud deployment offering, we are able to deliver a full-range of reliable and scalable options to schools,” says David Marr, senior vice president of Blackboard Transact.
Blackboard will also benefit from key products for card issuance and student tracking that joined the CardSmith portfolio following its 2012 acquisition of Jupiter, Fla.-based Vision Database Systems. VDS founder Emil Bonaduce and his team built the widely-used card production software, RapidCard IDMS, as well as a host of student tracking and mobile verification offerings.
CardSmith serves more than 200 institutions and the Blackboard release cites CardSmith’s reach at more than 2 million cardholders.
“As cloud infrastructures become more mature and deployment more widely adopted, today’s news marks a big step in the evolution of the campus transaction industry,” says Jay Summerall, founder and president of CardSmith. “By joining forces with Blackboard, we are giving an innovative solution more scale to serve more institutions and improve the educational experience.”
For the foreseeable future nothing is expected to change at CardSmith. A Blackboard company spokesperson told CR80News that CardSmith’s management, employees, locations and brand would remain in place and operate as an independent entity for now.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
It’s been nearly a decade since CR80News reported that a couple of campus card industry veterans opted not to join Blackboard when their employer, Student Advantage, sold the assets of its student payment offering known as SACash. Rather than make the move, Jay Summerall and Taran Lent opted to start their own company. That was the birth of CardSmith.
Fast-forward ten years, and the founders of CardSmith will now reportedly join the Blackboard team following their company’s acquisition.
Since its inception, CardSmith was intent on building a campus card offering that broke barriers in the traditional client-hosted, hardware-centric industry. The company pioneered software-as-a-service for card offices and helped take cloud solutions from peculiarity to legitimacy in the higher education vertical.
In the time since, nearly every campus card vendor has worked to migrate their functions to off-premise hosting, multi-tenant architecture and outsourced service. CardSmith managed to stay a step ahead in the software-as-a-service arena thanks in part to the company’s original focus on the cloud infrastructure, but also its late arrival to the party, so to speak. Because the company did not have 20-plus years of entrenched system development and client expectations – as was the case with established players like Blackboard, CBORD and Heartland – it was far easier for CardSmith to stay agile and build upon new technology without legacy encumbrances.
Back in 2004 as the company was preparing for launch, founders Summerall and Lent shared with CR80News their goals for CardSmith. “We really believe in the campus card phenomenon,” Summerall said. “Our mission is to make it easier to afford, use and maintain so that the whole range of campuses can reap the benefits card programs bring to a campus.”
“There are literally thousands of campuses that have yet to deploy an effective card program,” added Lent. “Many are too small or lack the resources to take advantage of current industry offerings. We plan to fill this void.”
The company and its founders sought out the smaller, underserved campuses and were successful in this aim. Though CardSmith can only claim a handful of top tier institutions, the hundreds of small colleges and universities, as well as K-12 schools, stand as a testament to the company’s original vision.
The first customer was Sweet Briar College – a 600 student women’s institution in central Virginia. Sweet Briar’s new head of campus finance and administration, Paul Davies, had just come on board from Duke University. He had established ties with the CardSmith team and gave the fledgling company its first real test.
At the time of the Sweet Briar install, Davies told CR80News that with CardSmith he would, “provide the same card functions that the DukeCard had, while at the same time reduce IT expenses and employee issues. I believe this will be the wave of the future.”
If an acquisition by one of the biggest players in the higher education industry is any indication, it seems Davies was right, as were Summerall and Lent.
